"In a work of art, something is embodied there. Something is captured,'' he says. "That desire, that pining, to hold it there a little longer - to hold it as long as the world exists - is a work of art.''

This is the moment I had with Bill, who has made a lot of art in his 89 years, much of which is now on display in two Bay area exhibitions.

It is a winter afternoon in Florida, clear and breezy, with a hint of coolness in the shade. Bill is sitting in a small courtyard behind his south Tampa home. He has been wintering here for decades and knows every plant, every brick. It is his "little paradise.''

On days like this, he sits outside and listens to books - today, verse by a Polish poet named Milosz.

He looks like the kind of older man you might find on a park bench in any city in Europe. Slight and dapper, with aquiline features, he is dressed in a camel-colored corduroy suit and lilac sweater, with a russet handkerchief in his lapel. On the table at his elbow, next to the tape player, is a checked wool hat.

At first, he has more questions than answers, and there is something birdlike in the way he listens: head cocked, intent. But soon enough, he is caught up in the tide of conversation. In his smoky, accented voice, he talks about art, fate, God, life. This is a man who still believes in ideas - for whom ideas are beliefs.

He quotes Joyce, among many others: "Imagination is memory.''

And he swears, a little.

"She's large, like Walt Whitman was large,'' he says of the novelist Marilynne Robinson, author of "Housekeeping.'' "I don't mean belly, big [butt] ...'' (he waves his arms in a big circle) "... but a fully rounded person.''

A Man In Full

Even before he entered his black-and-white phase, the leitmotif of William Pachner's life has been the struggle of light against darkness.

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1915, Pachner lost sight in his left eye at age 5, when the knife he was using to sharpen a pencil slipped. In spite of the injury, he became a professional illustrator.

In 1939, a professional contact arranged a visa for him to visit the United States. Shortly after arriving, he learned that Germany had invaded his homeland. There was no going back. Pachner managed to get a job as art director for Esquire magazine, and he married.

As the news from Europe continued to worsen, he tried to enlist in the Army but was rejected three times because of his eye. Instead, he made antifascist illustrations for magazines such as Collier's, Cosmopolitan and Redbook.

In 1946, Pachner learned that his family had been murdered by the Nazis. That was the end, among other things, of his career as a commercial illustrator.

"When I found out what happened in Europe ... and that all of my family, about 80 people, was gone, I said, `My hand cannot be hired by anybody. I must bear witness.' ''

As a fine artist, he met with almost immediate success. By the late 1940s, his work was showing in major East Coast galleries.

In 1951, he started teaching art in Florida, eventually building a winter studio in Tampa (his summer home is in upstate New York).

Fate Turns The Tide

Then the one-eyed painter began to lose sight in his other eye. By the early '80s, he could no longer work in color. He turned to black and white, then collage, relying on others to help him place the pieces. Finally, he was completely blind.

Around the same time, his wife of 55 years died of cancer.

"I don't want to be viewed as a charity case, a poor-son- of-a-bitch kind of thing,'' Pachner says. ``I don't want to sound like poor old Willie ... he's kicking dogs in the street ...''

He waxes metaphysical, not maudlin.

"One of the most idiotic questions that people ask is, `Is it autobiographical?' Anything that you do is autobiographical ... it is both true and it is not true,'' he says. "It is memory, it is imagination, it is spontaneity, it is conscious and unconscious. Finally, then, it has to be art. If it isn't art, screw it. What is it then? A pretty picture? Confetti?''

Life Is Not An Abstraction

The two shows of Pachner's work now on display span his career. The one at the Brad Cooper Gallery in Ybor City focuses on small works on paper. The larger show, at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, brings together 133 pieces that range from intimate ink drawings to large- scale oil paintings.

It is a powerful body of work.

The latter show, arranged thematically rather than chronologically, begins with black- and-white work. There are self-portraits and repeated images of trains and tracks - one of several themes that recur throughout his career.

The real unifying trait, though, is Pachner's sense of line. Whether as thick and inky as a Roualt or a lightning-quick ink outline, his draftsmanship is exquisite - spontaneous and yet precise, emotional but balanced. Many of these works are very good; some are masterpieces.

You won't see much of Pachner's erotica in the show, but you can get a sense of his cheekiness in the satirical drawings, which have enough bite to leave a mark. There are also a few sophisticated watercolors that venture into the murky end of that delicate palette.

In places, Pachner makes explicit references to war and death: barbed wire; an empty, gray room with a drain in the floor; a series that juxtaposes a stretcher with a scroll that bears more than a passing resemblance to a Torah.

It's not until the end that you reach the color canvases. Pachner doesn't think of these as abstract, although there is no obvious figurative content, just the energy of colors playing off one another, patterns of hue that hum with feeling. They are, instead, what he calls imagined landscapes - scenes from his inner life.

"Is there a greater joy than to take it all off - peel off your skin - and there it is?'' he asks. "I'm holding back nothing, I'm not putting on a show. Take a look.''

For Pachner, who undoubtedly knows his Keats, truth is the only beauty.

"You know why they like Monet, all these respectables? Because it's soft, a soft afternoon. I prefer a stiff afternoon,'' he announces crisply. ``It all looks like cotton candy. The moment it gets into something like Cezanne, it's `wait a minute, this is not pretty.' Would they know the difference between the lines in a Hallmark card and Bob Dylan? I don't think so.''

Postscript

There is some vinegar in him, but no bitterness - in spite of it all.

"If life teaches you anything, it is, in the long haul, acceptance,'' Pachner says. ``You have to be a believer in fate or destiny if you are the only member of your clan that survives. Is that purely an accident? Did they die for nothing?

"How come I found myself in a country where one is free to do one's work? Where they let you be, and you can choose what you want to do? Don't question why it happened. There is no answer.''

His world view is, in a way, religious, without being doctrinaire.

"The religious view of life is one of boundless gratitude for life, which is so fantastic, and so brief. You are given this, and before you know it, you have to give it up.

"The religious view of life is one of saying - again I'm back to Joyce. You know that scene [in `Ulysses'] of Molly Bloom in bed? She says yes. It behooves us to accept in gratitude and shut up.''

Pachner isn't just resigned. He still finds keen pleasure in literature, his garden, conversation. He is delighted by the details of the Holocaust Museum show, from the banner outside the building to the poster, designed by his daughter. Holding the exhibition catalog, he strokes the glossy pages, peering at the words.

"What am I doing?'' he says with a laugh, realizing that he has been trying to read the words. "The old habit ...''

He is grateful to Margaret Peters, the companion of 10 years who has enabled him to lead an independent life even in his blindness.

And he is proud - fiercely, paternally proud - of his art, especially his last works.

"Those damn things are going to live. They've got it,'' he says. "This is not megalomania. Those things are so damn real, those fragments of life, those experiences - as baffling, as incomprehensible as life. No explanations.

"All of this stuff is in it ...'' - he makes a circle in the air with his finger - "... fully rounded. It's not a wedge of pie; it's a full apple pie of life. Or a cheesecake. Whatever you want.

"The work cannot be understood, no more than a moment can be understood. You can say it was this, or it was that, and maybe it was, or it wasn't. I like that kind of art experience.''

Reporter Amanda Henry can be reached at (813) 259-7569